Gloverly Cupcakes

The other flavour cupcake which I make fairly regularly is chocolate! Again, my usual recipe is from The Hummingbird Bakery Cake Days book – as I’ve said before, they’re simple to make, they always come out perfectly and I know they taste good! I made these daisy ones for a charity cake sale in the office last week to raise money for Emily’s Big Walk – I always look for excuses to make cakes (especially if it’s for a good cause) so when an email came round about a cake sale I volunteered to make some.

The problem was deciding what to make – I have a long list of cakes I want to make but in the end I didn’t chose any of them! As part of the fundraising day there was also a dress down day with the theme “green” so I decided to make some cupcakes with green decorations. Since I was going to be making them after work I didn’t want them to be too complicated so I opted for 24 vanilla cupcakes and 24 chocolate cupcakes. The decorations for the vanilla cupcakes were an easy choice: green “flutterbies”. I was able to make the “flutterbies” in advance at the weekend – if you want to know how to make them look here! I struggled to think of how to decorate the chocolate ones though. I wanted to make something that would work well with the “flutterbies” so I came up with flowers and realised that it would be really easy to make some chocolate “daisies”, with a green centre, out of white chocolate!

The daisies were pretty straight forward to make and I would definitely make them again – I drew a circle on a piece of paper (I drew round my 20g weight) and marked where the centre was. I then put it under a sheet of greaseproof. I melted some white chocolate and put it into a piping bag with a small plain holed nozzle. I then piped lines of white chocolate from the outside of the circle into the centre all the way round the circle. Before the chocolate set I placed a mini green Smartie in the middle. I then put them in the fridge to make sure they set and then just pealed them off and placed one on top of each cupcake!

The recipe for the cupcakes and buttercream are below… happy baking!

P.S. In order to make 24 cupcakes I make 1.5 times the quantities below!

Chocolate Cupcakes (from The Hummingbird Bakery Cake Days)

Makes 16 (the recipe says makes 12-16 but I always get 16!)

280g caster sugar

200g plain flour

40g cocoa powder

80g unsalted butter

1 tbsp baking powder

pinch of salt

240ml milk

2 eggs

Line 2 muffin trays with 16 cases. Pre-heat the oven to gas mark 5.

Mix the sugar, flour, cocoa powder, butter, baking powder and salt together in a stand mixer (or rub in with your hands) until the mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs.

Beat the milks and eggs together in a jug and then gradually beat into the dry ingredients until smooth (ensuring that you scrape down the sides of the bowls after each addition).

Divide the mixture evenly between the 16 cases and then bake in the oven for 18-20 minutes until they are lightly browned on top and spring back when pressed (and a skewer comes out clean). I usually check them and turn them around after 15 minutes.

Take out the tins immediately and leave to cool on a wire ready. Decorate once completely cool.

Chocolate Buttercream (also from Hummingbird Bakery Cake Days)

400g icing sugar

100g cocoa powder

160g butter

50ml milk

Beat the icing sugar, cocoa powder and butter together on a very slow speed until the mixture resembles coarse breadcrumbs. I always put a tea towel over the top of my KitchenAid to prevent icing sugar going everywhere! Then slowly add the milk and vanilla. Once it’s all been added increase the speed and beat on high for 5 minutes until light and fluffy.

As with the vanilla buttercream I find this makes way too much for 16 cupcakes so I halve it (or make double the number of cupcakes!)